Page 35 - bneIntelliNews monthly country report Russia May 2024

age of eligibility for being called up to 25. However, it is “unclear how quickly Ukraine will draft and train the additional troops it needs, or whether they will be ready before the broader Russian offensive that is expected in the spring or summer,” according to NYT. ''The decision is taken—it's a good one, but it's too late,'' Serhiy Hrabsky, a colonel and a commentator on the war for the Ukrainian news media, told NYT. Hrabsky has a point. Given the mobilisation bill’s provisions, including that it would come into force one month after it is signed by Zelenskyy, it would take weeks to call up those eligible for mobilisation. It would then take 10 weeks or more to have these new recruits undergo basic training. Thus, the bulk of the newly recruited may be not yet be ready for fighting if Russia, which has rebuiltits conventional forces to the pre-invasion level, launches the new massive offensive in late May-early June, as expected in Kyiv. When estimating whether and when Ukraine will have a sufficient number of soldiers to successfully defend2 itself, one should also keep in mind draft dodging.
German defence Minister Boris Pistorius compared Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine to Adolf Hitler’s annexation of Czechoslovak territory in 1938 on April 11 and said Europe should prepare for a large-scale Russian attack. The signs of such an attack, he added, are being given “just as clearly as (by) Hitler, who also always said that he would not stop.”
The Russian Federation wants to mobilise another 300,000 soldiers by June 1. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia plans to mobilise an additional 300,000 military personnel by June 1, 2024. At the same time, the president noted that Ukraine currently does not need to mobilise 500,000 troops.
WSJ uncovers how black market supplies Russian troops with Starlink. Russian troops in Ukraine continue to obtain Starlink terminals through shadowy supply chains and intermediaries, while SpaceX has not shut them off, the Wall Street Journal reported on April 9.
Ukrainian intelligence plans to destroy the Crimean Bridge soon. As The Guardian writes, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of defence of Ukraine will make a third attempt in 2024 to destroy the Crimean Bridge, an almost 19-kilometer structure that connects the Russian Federation with annexed Crimea.
Ukraine struck a Russian drone assembly plant and the oil refinery using drones equipped with AI. Ukraine’s defence intelligence service has orchestrated an attack on a Shahed drone assembly plant in the Republic of Tatarstan, inside Russia, significantly damaging the production facilities from a distance of more than 1,200 km from Ukrainian territory. Ukraine's drone army also successfully attacked a Russian oil refinery complex with a capacity of eightmn tonnes, which is 2.6% of the country’s total annual oil refining capacity. Another success for the Ukrainian defence forces is the downing of
35 RUSSIA Country Report May 2024 www.intellinews.com